A report Chinese spies used tiny chips to exploit networks of dozens of U.S. companies is “not true,” Apple wrote Congress Monday. Bloomberg Businessweek’s recent article suggests Chinese state-owned entities planted malicious chips that infiltrated Apple servers. “Bloomberg provided us with no evidence to substantiate their claims and our internal investigations concluded their claims were simply wrong,” Apple Vice President-Information Security George Stathakopoulos wrote. “We are eager to share the facts in this matter because, were this story true, it would rightly raise grave concerns.” The letter was sent to leadership for the Senate and House Commerce committees. Tuesday, Bloomberg didn’t comment.
The FTC will host a public workshop March 27 on consumer protection and competition for the online event-ticket market, it announced Thursday. The agency is accepting comments through Dec. 5. Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter will keynote the event, to focus on transparency, lack of ticket availability, ticket bots and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. It will include discussion of the resale market with respect to disclosure of pricing, fees, speculative tickets and “consumer confusion regarding search engine advertisements and websites of resellers versus official primary ticket sellers.”
The Department of Homeland Security reduced the time it takes to patch a cyber vulnerability to within 30 days, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications Jeanette Manfra said in an interview for C-SPAN's The Communicators series, set to be televised later She conceded the agency struggled with patching vulnerabilities in an acceptable amount of time in the past. Shrinking the response had a ripple effect throughout the federal government, she said. The digital economy is so interconnected that cyber infections can spread quickly across the world, she said, calling cyberthreats a “constant, ever-present activity that everyone has to face.” She said the department had “limited visibility” of foreign influence campaigns in the 2016 election. DHS has worked hard in the past two years to deploy more “sensing capabilities,” particularly with state and local authorities, she said, and more than 1,500 jurisdictions participate in information sharing.
The Department of Transportation advanced plans to allow autonomous vehicles to operate on U.S. roads without features like steering wheels, pedals and mirrors. An 80-page report released Thursday details DOT’s "Automated Vehicles 3.0" policy, which emphasizes the department's authority to alter safety rules to accommodate the design request. General Motors in January filed for a design exemption for AVs. House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, applauded “DOT’s continued commitment to getting safe and innovative self-driving cars on America’s roadways, and share in the urgency for a unified safety framework across state lines.” DOT Secretary Elaine Chao’s commitment to balancing safety and innovation “will solidify our nation's global leadership in self-driving technologies at a time when other countries are trying to duplicate the United States' success,” CTA CEO Gary Shapiro said Thursday.
There's no evidence those behind Facebook’s recent hack (see 1810010032) accessed other applications using the Facebook login, it said Tuesday. The company analyzed logs “for all third-party apps installed or logged in during the attack,” Vice President-Product Management Guy Rosen wrote. Fifty million users’ access tokens were stolen, and the platform as a precaution reset access for another 40 million. In a separate issue, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood accused Facebook of improperly collecting children’s data without proper parental consent on Facebook Messenger Kids. The group asked the FTC to investigate. The agency didn’t comment. A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that parents, safety experts and privacy experts agree Messenger Kids is "one of the safest apps for kids to connect with their family and friends, and we also continue to support research on the relationship between technology and kids' wellbeing.”
Online platforms don’t need all user data to improve service, Apple CEO Tim Cook told VICE News Tonight in an interview aired Tuesday. “The narrative that some companies will try to get you to believe is, 'I've got to take all of your data to make my service better,'” he said. "Well, don't believe that. Whoever's telling you that, it's a bunch of bunk.” He denied any political motivation in Apple’s removal of far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and argued for “some level of government regulation” for data privacy. Internet Association didn't comment.
Amazon said it’s bumping its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all U.S. employees and will lobby for a hike in the federal minimum wage from $7.25. It has come under fire from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who last month co-wrote with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act to require compensation to the federal government from companies whose employees rely on federal assistance. “We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead,” CEO Jeff Bezos said Tuesday. He nudged "competitors and other large employers to join us.” "This is exactly the response Sen. Sanders and I hoped for when we introduced our bill," Khanna said. "Hopefully more companies will follow Amazon’s lead.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) urged "other businesses and other states to follow suit and show the same respect to their workers."
WineAmerica is the formal name of the National Association of American Wineries (see 1810010031).
Commissioner Rohit Chopra will keynote the FTC's third round of policy hearings on competition and consumer protection (see 1809210056). The event will run Oct. 15-17 at George Mason University and will cover “collusive, exclusionary, and predatory conduct in multi-sided, technology-based platform industries,” the agency said.
DOJ can appear during oral argument in Apple’s appeal of a class-action antitrust lawsuit alleging it monopolized distribution of App Store applications (see 1806180053), the Supreme Court decided Monday in Apple v. Robert Pepper, et al., docket 17-204. The solicitor general in May asked the court to grant Apple's petition, arguing the 9th Circuit misapplied Illinois Brick preventing indirect purchasers from seeking certain antitrust damages passed on by third parties (see 1805090051). States have “allowed indirect purchasers to sue under state antitrust law, leading to decades of experience that contradict the predictions and policy judgments underlying Illinois Brick,” 31 states argued in favor of Pepper. Computer & Communications Industry Association argued in favor of Apple, saying pass-through harm leads to duplicative damages claims in conflict with the high court’s precedents. Illinois Brick “preserves standing for a direct purchaser to recover damages for overcharges, whether or not those charges are passed along to downstream customers,” BSA|The Software Alliance argued. Open Markets Institute argued “Apple falsely implies its app store is a neutral and open marketplace. … Through contractual and technical restrictions, the company compels owners of iPhones and developers of iPhone apps to conduct business solely on its App Store and on its terms.”